News

Meet one of your Student Trustees!

Do you ever wonder what all the different positions are in SUSU? We want to make things clearer for you so you’re aware of the different officials who work or volunteer here. We have seven Sabbatical Officers, 33 Student Leaders, four Student Trustees and 13 Councillors, who all play a massive part in the running and improving of SUSU so that students have a better time at the University of Southampton. We’ll be releasing Q&A’s of individual Student Leaders, Councillors and Student Trustee, so you can find out more about them and their role!

We are proud to introduce one (out of four) of our Student Trustees, Will Yeong! Will Yeong (alongside Jade Head) had the highest number of votes in the Spring Elections and was elected as Student Trustee. Find out more about Will and his role below!

Will Yeong – Student Trustee

Tell us a bit about yourself Will!

As you probably know by now my name is Will. I’m 21, and will be going into my fourth year of Mechanical Engineering. My main hobby at the moment is photography and this year I am the technical manager for the Photographic Society. A fun fact about me is that I’m actually allergic to cats (sorry Susu cat!).

In under 60 words, how would you describe a Student Trustee’s role?

The main role of any trustee is to question everything. A trustee needs to be able to look through large pile of papers and pick out things that don’t look quite right. The reason for having Students as Trustees is because we aren’t immersed in everyday SUSU life, which hopefully provides a new set of eyes on decisions made.

What interested you to run for Student Trustee?

In my third year, I was Front of House Manager for UnionFilms. This gave me such a good insight into how SUSU operates. I then decided to run for an open Union Council position where I learnt about the role of Student Trustee. I ran for it because I wanted to be able to get deeply involved with SUSU but without the time commitment that some other positions require considering I will be going into my final year.

What’s the one thing you want to improve or change by next year?

I would really love for more people to know about the role of Student Trustee and it’s a shame that only four people ran for the four available positions of trustee because the role has a lot of potential to change things within SUSU. I think the lack of awareness about the role is a major reason why students don’t run for the position so this is something I want to change. I guess this is the first step – I’m really happy to be doing this blog to raise awareness of who we are and what we do!

How did you start getting involved with SUSU?

In my first year, I was part of the Street Dancing society and attended quite a lot of UnionFilms screenings. I didn’t properly start getting involved with SUSU until my second year when I became a volunteer for UnionFilms. It gave me a great insight into the working of SUSU and I’ve been trying to get more involved ever since. I’d really recommend more Fresher’s to start SUSU in their first year and not be afraid to run for elections!

What are your interests?

As I mentioned previously, I am really into photography and love just going to places and exploring. What a lot of people don’t know is that I play the Violin and although unfortunately I don’t have much time at Uni to be able to play it much anymore.

What’s your message to students?

The world is full of opportunities to get more involved, have new experience and meet new people. Don’t be afraid to try out new things and never hold back from running for a position because you think someone else is going to get it.